Ch. 16 Home Run
Come on everypony smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
If you’d asked me a year ago to rate the most painful ways to die, I might have said something like fire. I like to think that I’m well educated, but death is one of those things most ponies are only unfortunate enough to experience once. Given my new skill set, I could safely say fire barely cracks the top ten worst ways to die.
I won’t bore you with numbers two through ten, but I can safely say the worst way I’ve died in a time loop was the quarray eel. As I lay in bed I could still feel the thick slime and how it burned. I still struggled to breathe, and the claustrophobia lingered. It took a couple minutes to will myself not to dwell on the excruciating details of being a snack for a very large pony-eating killing machine.
I’d have to do something to end this, once and for all. If Starlight wouldn’t cooperate by choice, I’d have to force her to. There was just one problem.
I was in no way a warrior. I tended to deflect inquiries into my well-being with humor and procrastinate when I had a tough decision to make. Ponies often assumed I was just some jerk who didn’t want to fit in.
I was primarily a healer. It didn’t matter if I looked like a human or a pony, the thing I enjoyed most in life had always been healing others. When somepony was having their worst day, when nopony else could be there to help, I was there. By pony standards I was very admirable in my desire to heal and do no harm, but what ponies often forgot is that I was a human first.
I couldn’t use any fancy combat spells, or do pony kung fu. I’d only saved Equestria twice, compared to Twilight’s fifteen or so times. My favorite way to solve conflict was to threaten to get Celestia involved.
Despite all that, I did grow up in a world where our favorite pastime was violent movies and video games that could teach you to survive anything from the zombie apocalypse to driving a taxi crazily through a town. Starlight may outmatch most ponies in every way that mattered, but I doubted even she had the raw potential for chaos and violence I did. That same potential had drawn Discord to use Earth as his vacation home. Humans could do a lot of horrible things when they got angry.
And I was pissed.
I had one other thing Starlight didn’t have: a town full of friends. Some of them had contingency plans for time loops, some of them were spies, and some had seen through my brash exterior to my potential to change for the better. With their help, I would make sure each and every one of us got through this time loop. Most importantly, I’d make sure we opened a can of whoop-ass on Starlight so big that she’d start whimpering in fear anytime she saw a can opener.
It didn’t take long to gather up my friends and convince them to meet at Bon Bon’s home. I’d decided to use the potion to turn myself into a mare. I could go around the town and if Starlight saw me, she’d think it was just Sunny going around to do her errands. Given how Starlight had been killing me on sight a lot lately, it seemed a prudent measure to take. It took time to make preparations, and being a mare again proved the perfect disguise.
Bon Bon led us down into the basement once I’d explained to her what was going on. Knowing she was a S.M.I.L.E. agent had gone a long way to convincing her I was from the future, and not on some crazy poison-joke fueled bender. I suppose after doing that a few times, it can color a pony’s perception of you.
Minuette, Lyra, Bon Bon, Pinkie Pie, and I were huddled up around a table where I’d hastily scribbled some notes to represent the plan. We were each dressed in one of Pinkie Pie’s dangerous mission outfits. She’d even sewn pockets into mine, where I’d stashed the rest of the gear from her prophetic In Case of Time Loop Emergency Kit. The last piece of the kit was resting against the wall.
“I’ve brought you all here for your special skills that will help us with this mission. Minuette, you’re the only pony who can do time magic and not break reality. I need you to do that thing and keep us one step ahead of Starlight’s attacks,” I stated.
“Got it,” she answered.
“Bon Bon, you’re the only one with access to the network of spy devices to coordinate this mission. Everypony have one of Bon Bon’s ear pieces?” I asked.
“Roger roger!” Pinkie said through the device.
My earpiece whined slightly from the proximity to hers as it transmitted. “Ugh, not so loud. Anyway, Pinkie, I need you to go get Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity. You’re the only one quick enough to get them all undetected using your… well, whatever it is that lets you defy physics like the laws of the universe are more of a suggestion.”
“Got it. What do you need us to do?” Pinkie inquired.
“Make it look like you’re evacuating the town, and be sure to tell everypony they’re stuck in a time loop but you found a way out. Send them all towards town hall,” I explained.
“What am I going to do?” Lyra walked over and stood next to me. “Don’t think I’d let you do this alone, even if my magic isn’t as awesome as Minuette’s.”
“Lyra, I need you to find Vinyl and have her crank up the bass to eleven,” I explained.
“What?” Lyra frowned. “You’re sidelining me?”
I glanced at Bon Bon, who nodded once. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you. The only way this works is if I keep you safe so I don’t have to worry about protecting you, Lyra.”
She immediately looked over at Bon Bon, seeming to realize who had really made that call, before turning back to me. “Alright. If you care about me that much, then I’ll do it.” She shot one more nastly glance at Bon Bon. “For you, Dawn.”
I was glad they probably wouldn’t remember this conversation. I was uncomfortable watching the two of them, they were clearly leaving a lot left unspoken and it was affecting their relationship.
“Anyway, you’ll lead her here and that’s when it’ll happen…”
“Come on everypony! You too Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted. “Hurry up, portal outta the time loop won’t be open forever.”
She trotted down the road on the left side, while Fluttershy was leading several animals down the middle. On the right side of the road, Rarity was knocking on doors and getting everypony to evacuate their homes. The crowd of ponies going down the main street had at least fifty ponies present.
“Hurry up, darling,” Rarity said to Lemon Drop. “Remember straight to town hall, if the villain shows up nopony look back. Run for safety, you know the drill!”
“The eagle has left the nest” Bon Bon’s voice crackled as she spoke into my earpiece. “Repeat, the eagle has left the nest.”
“Hear that Pinkie?” I asked. “Have our friends keep it up.”
Pinkie appeared from behind a picket fence and hopped over to Fluttershy. “Alright, you best hurry up with those animals. Starlight’s almost here.”
She nodded. “Please, Pinkie, keep an eye on Dawn for me. I wish I could do more.”
“Don’t be a silly filly, we all have a part to play and you’re helping keep her safe just as much as me!”
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “Her?”
Pinkie put a hoof to her lips. “Shh, it’s a secret. She’s undercover.”
Fluttershy muttered something too soft for me to hear.
“What was that, Pinkie?” I asked.
“She said you should visit her one loop as a mare and, um… I don’t wanna repeat the rest. There are fillies present,” Pinkie responded.
I heard an “eep” that somehow carried all the way down the road to me, and saw Fluttershy blush red enough to match Big Mac’s coat color.
Luckily, her embarrassment was cut short as Starlight glided down towards my friends in an aura of her own magic.
“She can fly now?” Bon Bon asked. “That wasn’t in the intel you gave me, Dawn!”
“Hey if being a spy is so easy, why didn’t you know?” I quipped.
“What’s going on here?” Starlight’s voice carried as if it were the Royal Canterlot voice, getting everypony’s attention. To their credit, this wasn’t the first apocalypse they’d faced, and everypony immediately scattered to find the nearest panic room.
“It’s over, Starlight.” Applejack stepped forward defiantly. “We beat you once, and I reckon we’ll do it again.”
“Applejack, honestly, did you really find a way to fix or escape the spell?” Starlight asked. She landed on the ground and stepped right up to her, muzzle to muzzle.
“Honestly? I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” Applejack swung so fast that I barely saw the punch thrown.
Starlight had been expecting it, and her shield came up just in time to throw the earth pony back into the nearest wall as it expanded. The wooden wall of the house cracked from the impact.
“Crap, where’s Lyra’s distraction? Do we move early?” I asked.
“Hold position!” Bon Bon replied.
Applejack hadn’t gotten up yet, and a very angry Rarity stood in the middle of the road. Wisps of green were trailing from her eyes and horn, reminding me of a story Spike had told me once and asked me not to repeat. I smirked, apparently Rarity had never fully let go of the things she’d learned from that tome of dark magic, and I couldn’t be prouder.
Before the two unicorns came to blows, there were loud explosions and all the windows in the street shattered outwards. The loudest bass drop I’d ever heard was playing and it sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. I couldn’t hear a damn thing except the lyrics.
“It’s all about that bass! Canon bass! No cello! All about that bass!—”
As we gathered around the table in Bon Bon’s basement, I spelled out the next phase of our plan. “I’ve tried attacking her alone or with the help of one or two other ponies, but it never goes well. She’s good, like Twilight-level good, and she always seems to have just the right spell prepared. No matter how hard I try to surprise her, we’re kinda stuck in a time loop together and she knows I’m coming again and again.”
“So we just have to do something so random she’d never predict it!” Pinkie offered cheerfully. “I’m thinking of a giant cake with dynamite instead of candles, and instead of exotic dancers bursting out, we fill it with parasprites!”
I stared at her for a minute and almost took her up on her offer, before deciding there was no way she could seriously pull that off on short notice in under an hour. “Let’s call that plan B. Plan A is for Minuette and I to attack as soon as the music starts to try and keep her off balance. She’ll be surrounded by the former element bearers, a bunch of panicked ponies, and our hit team. She can’t track all of us at once, especially in the crowd.”
Bon Bon raised a hoof. “Remember we’re trying to limit collateral damage, worst case the loop ends and we destroy half of Ponyville and get ponies hurt. We have to take her down at all costs though, and prove to her that she has no choice but to cooperate. If she doesn’t, then I’ll personally extract the information from her using my interrogation room.”
I nodded. “I’m going to take the first shot at interrogating her, no offense. If that doesn’t go well, we can pull her teeth out together.”
“Don’t be so barbaric,” Bon Bon said. “Only amateurs resort to physical violence.” She smirked in a way that made me absolutely certain I did not ever want to piss this mare off.
“So you’ve tried it before, how will this time be different?” Lyra asked.
“With this.” I pulled out the potion that was in Pinkie’s emergency kit. “It’s made by Potion Nova, I have no idea what it does, and I already drank it half an hour ago.”
“And you didn’t explode or get sucked into the bottle so I’m pretty sure it’s something good!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“Uh, got anything a bit more substantial? Like maybe one of those guns or a lightsaber you always talk about?” Lyra made a whooshing sound as she waved a foreleg around.
“Better.” I lifted up the baseball bat. “I’ve got this.”
“Yeah it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no connoisseur—”
The music continued to pump so loudly that I was sure the entire town had already lost half their hearing. The distraction was working perfectly.
Starlight stood in the middle of the road, firing wildly at anypony she could see and missing most of the shots. Her and Rarity traded a few blasts, and I realized Rarity seemed to be getting incredibly lucky as Starlight’s attacks kept barely missing her.
In a side alley, I saw Minuette, her horn glowing and a faint wisp of smoke rising from it. I realized I needed to move now, before she over-exerted herself again. She was keeping Rarity safe, and Starlight distracted, but time magic came at a high cost.
“Red five, going in!” I said into my earpiece.
I jumped off the roof I had been crouching on and gripped the baseball bat tightly. It only took a few seconds to close the distance on Starlight. I swung the bat down hard to hit her, hitting the ground with the thick wooden stick. She’d teleported at the last second, and I immediately climbed into the air and banked hard to the right. A bolt of energy sizzled past me, taking off most of my tail.
By the time I spotted Starlight again, she had engaged Minuette directly. I saw Rarity laying in the street, and she wasn’t moving. Minuette had a shield up, but wasn’t dodging the spells.
I dove down at Starlight again, and wasn’t surprised when she quickly turned and fired a bolt of magic right at me. I swung the bat out of reflex, it connected with the magic and made a loud pinging sound. The magic flew back at Starlight, catching her off-guard and sending her tumbling across the ground.
I was a bit shocked that the bat had done that, and looked down at it. Along the side of the bat two words were emblazoned on the wood, smoking faint lavender wisps. “Home Run”. Apparently Twilight didn’t mess around when it came to baseball or time travel.
As I got closer to strike at Starlight again, I heard a scream and glanced over in time to see Minuette suffering from magical overload. She’d pushed too hard with magics no pony should mess with. Looking through the magical feedback was like looking through a kaleidoscope and the next second, she too lay unmoving on the ground. The stump of her horn smoked, and I really hoped she’d wake up fine the next loop or I would never forgive myself.
Starlight was already back on her hooves, and I saw her wipe some blood from her muzzle. She looked more unamused than usual, causing me to gulp as I stood there staring at her like a dumbass.
“The important thing to remember,” Bon Bon stated, “is that no plan survives contact with the enemy.”
I nodded and gestured to the map of the town. “We don’t have a lot of heavy hitters here, but Bon Bon will try to coordinate if Minuette or I go down early in the fight. That’s where you come in Pinkie, along with anypony that’s got no qualms about getting their hooves dirty.”
“My hooves are almost always dirty, you’d be surprised at how flour can get everywhere,” Pinkie said.
“This is serious, Pinkie.”
“I know, that’s why I straightened out my mane,” Pinkie explained.
I tilted my head to the side in confusion, as every other pony in the planning room started backing away from her.
The bolt of magic hit me right in the face as I let out a dignified war cry, and not a scream. I felt a surge of magical energy around me, and the spell seemed to get absorbed before it could do unspeakably painful things to me. I was sent tumbling across the ground, the potion bottle spilling out of my pocket and skidding to a stop in front of me.
I thanked my lucky stars that the potion had seemed to have anti-magic properties. “Bon Bon, Plan B!” I cried into the earpiece. I looked around for the baseball bat, not wanting to find out if the potion was able to absorb more than just the one spell. “My flanks are hanging out in the wind!
As I got back to my hooves, I heard the song continue playing. It was accompanied by a loud bang as a giant cake full of sparklers and fireworks landed on Starlight’s shield. An instant later the cake exploded, coating the street in frosting, but leaving two ponies completely unscathed; Starlight, and Pinkamena Diane Pie. The pair stood about six feet apart staring at one another.
I quickly got to my hooves and started looking for Home Run so I could knock that horn off Starlight’s head.
“Why. So. Serious?” Pinkamena asked.
“Pfft.” Starlight’s horn lit up and she summoned a bolt of lightning.
I felt it coming with my pegasus magic, looking over to warn Pinkie. It took only a fraction of a second to form and strike, but Pinkamena was already gone. She’d dodged the spell, popping up right behind Starlight. She spun and kicked her hard in the flanks, sending Starlight tumbling for the second time today.
“Yeah! Go Pinkie!” I cheered.
She descended on Starlight again and I resumed my search for my weapon. A cloud of dust formed as they tumbled across the road. A moment later I heard a cry of pain. Pinkamena was lying still in the road, a large chunk of Starlight’s tail caught in her teeth.
“Wild Child is down! Wild Child is down!” Bon Bon warned me. “We’ve got no more contingency, get out of there Dawn!”
“We’ve come too far to quit! I just need something blunt,” I answered.
“Damn it! Abort!”
I started rustling through a nearby bush in a panic; the bat couldn’t have gone far. Starlight took her time walking towards me, nopony else daring to get near her. When I looked up she was right across the road from me.
“Uh, parlay?” I asked meekly.
Her horn lit up and she fired another bolt of lightning at me.
“So what’s plan C?” Lyra asked. “If this doesn’t work, do I get to help next time?”
I shook my head. “There isn’t really a plan C, Lyra. I used being a mare as a disguise to make all the preparations. I’m keeping it for the fight so she underestimates me. I can only really use that trick once. Plus, Doctor Stable says all my deaths in the time loop are causing lasting damage. I ran into Luna in a dream a while back, and now I understand she was trying to tell me the same thing.”
“Everypony,” I said. “This has to work. Maybe she’d have listened to reason but our relationship has become too antagonistic. If we can’t beat some sense into her, this back and forth may continue until I stop waking up in the next loop. Then she’ll fix it, and probably leave you all here to your fate.”
The room grew quiet and somber, before Lyra spoke up. “Well then I won’t let you fail.”
“No!”
There was a flash of mint green as Lyra leaped out in front of the lightning bolt, trying to shield us with her magic. The spell fizzled, and the lightning bolt coursed through her body, leaping over to strike me. My wings flared and I felt the energy dissipated into them. Lyra was not as lucky, and twitched twice on the ground before she ceased moving.
“You killed Lyra!” I shouted angrily.
“What?!” Bon Bon screamed.
I grinned. “Oh, now you fucked up.”
“Making mares fight his battle for him?” Starlight rolled her eyes. “I’m not even going to ask how Dawn roped you into this, Sunny, but the only mistake here was helping him. I know where you live, and I’m going to pluck every single feather off you tomorrow morning, stuff them up your—”
She let out a puff of air and grunted in pain as a highly trained and exceptionally pissed earth pony plowed into her side. Bon Bon carried Starlight over twenty feet just with the pure momentum of her charge, before smashing through a fence and several trash cans. They vanished down the alleyway, and I had the impression a freight train would have made less noise than Bon Bon currently was.
“So what’s the endgame, Dawnie?” Pinkamena asked. “If you are able to actually subdue her.”
“I’ll pay a visit to Rarity’s to get some restraints. Trust me, she can hold a full-grown stallion down easily with her gear. Don’t ask.” I shuddered at the thought.
“Then we chop her up like some sort of… sweet apple cupcake factory in a shed?” Pinkamena asked.
“Interrogation, remember,” I stated. “We’re not in the killing business, nor the shock fiction business. We’re in the blunt force trauma business. And business is good.”
I ran over to help, making it halfway across the street before a wave of wind hit me. I skidded to a stop as trash cans and debris flew out of the alleyway. There was no more noise from the fight going on.
Starlight walked out into the road, her eyes filled pure white with magic. Her mane and tail were hovering in the air. I’d learned enough to know what a magic surge looked like. It was the kind of thing very stressed and desperate unicorns went through. It was also the best way to get rid of a pesky mountain that was blocking your view of the ocean.
I glanced away to see if any help was coming, and noticed the bat. Starlight followed my gaze. It was halfway between us and off to the right resting against a mailbox. There was no way I’d get to it in time.
“So I hear you pegasi like lightning,” Starlight stated.
Every fiber of my being told me to run, but I was petrified as the sky quickly darkened and thunder rumbled in the sky. Bolts of energy were dancing around Starlight like a Tesla coil. Already my wings had involuntarily spread, and the electricity was arcing between them just from my proximity to her.
I searched my memory for all the things I had learned about magic over the past months for anything that could help me. I began piecing together the symbols and runes in my mind, as if they would do me any good without a horn to cast them. To counter so much power you’d need shielding, you’d need to channel the power through or away from you. The sigil for raw magic could be combined with the one for lightning to shape it into a form a pegasus would be more able to handle.
As the images danced around in my head, I imagined what it would take to survive the fury of electricity quickly gathering around me.
Starlight fired and I thrust my wings forward, hoping that my innate magic would at least lessen the impact.
The world exploded into white light, and I felt a searing pain run through my wings and into every bone in my body. The sigils and runes in my mind glowed brightly, and for a brief moment I saw the raw essence of magic in my mind. It was being shaped and controlled, directed by my will. I couldn’t keep up with the how or the why, but deep down I understood what was happening.
The two dozen lightning bolts that had coalesced from every direction had contacted my left wing. Energy flowed in, across my back, and out my right wing. A single bolt of lightning the width of a pony’s chest leapt forth from my outstretched primary feathers and directly into the next nearest magical conductor: Starlight’s horn.
It looked like she let out a scream of agony, but my hearing was completely shot and ringing from the loud crack of thunder. I stood frozen in place as she collapsed, my mind still reeling as my muscles and nervous system slowly regained their ability to communicate.
I walked over to the baseball bat, and then over to Starlight. She was struggling to get back to her hooves. Her horn was trailing thick wisps of smoke.
“How the hell did you survive that?” I asked.
Then I brought the baseball bat down on her head like I was playing whack-a-mole at an arcade.
She collapsed limply into the street. I reached down to check her pulse, she was still alive which meant she could answer some questions. I began pulling out the gear I’d borrowed from Rarity, and dragged Starlight by her tail, over to the nearest intact cart I could find.
Starlight was still unconscious. Her legs were bound and a magic inhibitor ring was on her horn. I’d taken her to Twilight’s castle and found a nice room where we wouldn’t be disturbed so we could have a little chat. Daylight was running out, however, and I was a little worried she might not wake up in time.
It had taken half a dozen friends to subdue Starlight, and Ponyville had turned into a ghost town. Anypony with half a brain had stayed in hiding, and everypony who had helped me or just been outside in the wrong place at the wrong time was dead until the next loop. Even knowing it wasn’t permanent, I still had to work hard to control my rage at what Starlight had done. I needed her help, and that meant only bluffing when she woke up about all the fun ways I could disassemble her.
While I waited, I found a small medical kit and began tending to our wounds. Something had hit my eye and scratched it, blurring my vision a bit and being generally annoying. I found an eyepatch to wear to help with the sensitivity to light. Next I’d tend to a few smaller cuts. Most of my mane and tail were gone, singed by magic. It left my mane short and choppy looking.
Starlight was worse off. Several ribs felt fractured, judging by the grunts of pains when I performed a physical exam. Her horn still had faint wisps of smoke coming off it, though the inhibitor ring seemed to be preventing any further damage.
As a few glass bottles of disinfectant clinked together, I chanted. “Starlight, come out to play~” I chuckled to myself before getting up to stretch and walking over to sit by the door.
I heard a groan, and grabbed the baseball bat to protect myself. Starlight was waking up, and a moment later was staring at me. She struggled a bit, and her eyes were watery from the pain.
“You should get that concussion checked out. They’re, like, super bad for you.” I explained. “Everpony thinks you just tap someone on the head and they pass out, but it’s more like I played pinball. Your brain was the ball, and my bat was the bumper.”
“What?” She mumbled. “Where am I?”
I walked over, deliberately dragging the bat on the ground so it’d make as much noise as possible. I let it knock over a few of the bottles.
“We’re in the castle. I’m Dawn, not Sunny,” I explained. “Oh I look like a mare, sure, but I did say I had many skills that would make me a nightmare for a pony like you. You ruined a perfectly good monologue in Ghastly Gorge too, but you just had to fuck around and find out.”
“Dawn?”
“Yep.” I sat down in front of her and poked her muzzle with the bat. “I’m here to force you to fix the time loop, and ironically we’re short on time. So I think I’m going to start by breaking your kneecaps to jog your memory, like one of those old mob movies I used to watch. Wait, do you even have kneecaps?” I asked.
Starlight groaned and tugged at the leg restraints. Her horn began to glow faintly, and the magic inhibitor lit up brightly.
“Not so fun to be the one getting their ass kicked huh? But I wouldn’t try magic, not with that inhibitor on.”
The metal ring around her horn began to glow red, quickly approaching white hot.
“Hey, I’m serious!” I said, dropping the sarcastic tone. “I’ve heard what trying to force magic through an inhibitor does and you’re barely conscious!”
Starlight whimpered as she continued to try and overload the ring. For a moment I thought it might explode, but the faint glow of the horn finally stopped. The unicorn who had spent the better part of a month killing ponies for fun began to cry. She sobbed uncontrollably and curled up into as small of a ball as she could make on the hard crystal floor.
“Well I saw this going one of two ways, but I never thought you’d start crying.”
After a few moments I was convinced it wasn’t an act. I walked over and began to gently massage her scalp, trying to ease the pain of the magic that had built up when she tried to destroy the inhibitor. It seemed to work, and her sobbing was starting to slow down. Without her crying acting as a distraction, I asked her the one simple question I hoped would bring me to the core of the issue.
“What on Equestria happened to you to make you so vengeful?”
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and hopefully, this is the start of something good
LMAO DAWN IS GONNA BE SO PISSED WHEN HE KNOWS HER REASON
Dawn is going to absolutely destroy Starlight when he finds out why she's doing this.
I imagine the start of next chapter sees Dawn pacing in front of Starlight, six paces to either side in tandem cycles, while magic lightning slowly builds up as his rage grows and he slowly growls/yells "Are you fucKING KIDDING ME?!" one word at a time, each word being said a different time he passes in front of Starlight. Or something like that.
This was a fun chapter, though I found it a little odd that Dawn died via digestion and it wasn't mentioned that it didn't maintain or worsen his degenerative health.
On that topic, I wonder if his transformation with the potion gives him an undamaged body or not. I'm also curious as to what Starlight would turn into if the plan had been different and Dawn managed to make her ingest it, since there's a possibility that it could neutralize her as a threat. Also makes me wonder if the effects of the potion reverse with the loop reset, and if it's also not complete if it does.
Is she the Joker now?
Hah. I started this chapter off wondering when that potion would come into play. You have good timing.
I was also half expecting Dawn to alicornify from that. Overall, great chapter.
also, guess dawn isn't a fan of hard vore?
I really gotta say I am loving these hard reset references.
is this a reference to avatar the last air bender?
zuko deflecting lightning?
the chapter image!
dawn finally got the eye patch
I hope he still breaks her legs after hearing her story. I probably would have.
I see this going a little differently.
How people in the comment's about Starlight, in a nutshell:
Nice
11134014
Yeah, it started out that way. I wanted Dawn to gain some ability from his studies of magic, beyond book smarts, like magic without a horn. And I thought about what that might look like. Iroh and Zuko's ability to redirect lightning, and Dresden File's "energy flows into the body from the left and out the right", and Dawn became able to redirect magical energies.
I didn't want to get in the weeds on how magic works, but without a horn to generate the magic, Dawn can't cast spells. But with somepony else supplying the magic, he sort of can? I guess it'd be like sticking a fork in an electrical socket to light up a light bulb. Sane ponies use a lamp, but Dawn's just found out if you're reckless enough you can redirect energies by knowing how to cast a spell and having somepony else blast you.
11134106
Yup, the blood lust is insatiable, I'll probably have to do a spin-off and go full Cupcakes and even then, it won't be enough.
11133662
Dawn went pretty emo and depressed in DoH2 when he lost a single friend (Dash). Maybe it's more relatable since he's a lot less rational than other ponies, and constantly gets into horrible situations that could be fixed by a 5 minute conversation... kind of like Starlight. Ah, the good old sitcom Idiot Ball...
Though if I ever actually revise DoH2 I'd probably tone down that entire dark self-pity arc and just focus more on his identity crisis instead. The cast of secondary characters running around his subconscious was a lot more fun than being a shut-in for a week.
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He's definitely not a fan of being eaten alive... I would imagine he'd have suffocated first, but he'd still dissolve in acid. He did take a while to recover and get out of bed but I wasn't sure how far to lean into how horrific it was. I also wasn't sure I wanted him running around with all his hair falling out or something, but he does do his best to avoid anymore 'accidents'. Luckily they must have created Dawn with an Adamantium skeleton because he's held up pretty well.
11134014
I was thinking the same thing
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Act 3 (the current) is the darkest, just comic violence but dark implications, and it's over now. Act 4 is much more optimistic, I just hope the transition works well. I had to resist the urge to make it too dark, but I wanted the action and consequences to be as real as possible so that there were some stakes.
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Yeah, Pinkamena is weaponized randomness. She'd make an awesome Joker, but with the 4th-wall breaking abilities of Deadpool, she'd be unstoppable. She'd also make a good replacement for Discord.
“I won’t kill you, because you’re just too much fun.”
Or maybe
“Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos, I’m an agent of chaos, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”
Now I have a story idea about Pinkie going insane in fun new ways, or maybe having her forced to fill in for Discord when he goes on vacation or something.
"Well that escalated quickly, I mean, that really got out of hand fast."
But seriously fucking Starlight, good thing Dawn is break her in more ways than a hundred! Because oh boy I can already feel the eye twitching after he heard her lame ass excuse!
The comics did something like that. I can't vouch for the quality of the story because I haven't read it, but they did go into all the reasons why it's bad news for everyone else.
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That is something I would read. I don't care for Discord, but that definitely sounds like something worth reading.
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"Quick Twilight, shoot me!"
"Dawn I don't-"
"FOR THE SAKE OF FRIENDSHIP shoot me right now!"
"Okay..."
The big problem I see is that they've done some massive amount of damage to each other, but she's straight up killed minuette and lyra several times now, hopefully they're actually resetting and only Starlight and Dawn are the ones taking lingering damage. Either way, there's a point where their brains are just gonna be goo and the day will keep resetting over and over again